


A Panicked State

by TheFandomBusiness_WT



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Drinking, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Self-Harm, Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 23:33:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18509341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFandomBusiness_WT/pseuds/TheFandomBusiness_WT
Summary: Short snippets of moments of panic





	1. Gone

The thoughts are accelerating inside my head. I want them to slow so I can breathe, even for a second but they won't. Each breath comes in a gasp and I feel like I a black out will soon occur as spots dance across my peripheral. My heart is hammering inside my chest like it belongs to a rabbit running for its skin against a pack of rabid dogs. The room spins as I sink down pressing into the wall behind me onto the floor, trying to make everything slow to something my brain and body can cope with. I feel sick. My voice dying in my lungs each gasp taking away the sound of a scream. I need to call them but the phone is too far away, too far away, too far. I don't know who to call, their number, who too call, too far away, he's gone, he went, breathe, gone, what number, too far away... blackness... creeping blackness... I'm on the floor in a tightly wound ball- Gasping for breath, just one. Just one, the room is spinning...blackness...he's gone... I’m gone. Finally.


	2. Hurricane

I’m moving about the room like there's a hurricane inside me. Moving like my brain is demanding the exponential energetic expenditure of an Olympic athlete but won't tell my limbs what to do. Eyes are wild and when I try to sit I start rocking, tapping, rocking, getting faster and faster until explosion into motion again. Suddenly talking. Talking like I don't have enough time to say what I need to. Words crowded together and some missing. Sentences fragmented I stutter thoughts seem to jump from one another. Fears are tumbling out unchecked by my brain, in some kind of mental free-fall, unable to analyse or assess risk. Words are bouncing off me like hard rain. Someone’s in front of me. My fingers are white-knuckled pressing into my palm wishing for release and there asking me if I’m OK. OK. I tell them yes. I tell her over and over, reassuring her, reassuring myself . I need to calm down. I’m okay. I’m okay. Really I am okay.


	3. Late

It's seven, she was supposed to be here at seven, no call, no call, no nothing . She's dead. Gone. There's been a crash. She probably just left me here. No. No. There must be. Something. She's hurt. She's bleeding. She needs me and I'm not there. I need to call someone. The car is old. The airbags failed. Dead. She's bleeding out and no-one knows. I can't breathe, I can't walk...the phone is ringing...I can't get there...its so far away, I cant breath. Maybe I was just left here.


	4. Wrapped up

The panic starts out as thin plastic coating the whole of me. It blocks my airways and suffocates my skin, something my fingers can tear breathing holes in. Something fingernails can scratch off before it seals. In the next minute the panic is a deluge of ice water enclosing my every limb, crushing every cell, closing around my throat, the last few bubbles under the plastic rushing out. Creeping higher until it passes into my mouth and nose. An onslaught of harsh pressure. That's when the it becomes absolute, shutting my body down as fast as punching a biochemical reset button. I am gone.


	5. Just smile

A strong invisible hand clasps over my mouth; an invisible hypodermic of adrenaline brushes through my heart, unloading in an instant. I feel my ribs heaving as if bound and crushed by ropes, straining to inflate my lungs, but no air moves in past the phantom hand on my windpipe. My head, full of fears spinning out of control, each one pushing my mind into blackness and blinding light. Its too much. I want to run; I need to freeze. Sounds that were near feel far away, but much too close, like I'm no longer in my body, yet I am nowhere but here struggling to breathe.

Every muscle felt tight, sprung for action and I couldn't even walk. Body screamed at me to sprint down the street, to spend the energy that kept piling in regardless of my inability to use it. Even my face felt tight, like smiling just wasn't an option today. The usual façade of calm had been replaced by a carousel of ideas, each one more worrying than the last. Telling someone meant people would know , people knowing meant no stress relief, so how the fuck am I going to cope with the exams? I’ll fail. Friends will move on to university and ill get a job doing something I hate for minimum wage. Getting more depressed and fat and stupid. On my third cycle through it I gave up, eyes completely dry as usual, no hope.


	6. Touch

I’ve been in bed for 10 hours, I haven’t slept, not even a second. I’ve got up 6 times, granted not for that long. Check the doors, check the doors again, get a drink, get bored, check the doors, get another drink. Each time I close my eyes I can see him, feel the panic in my rigid body, every nerve in my skin, bile in my throat and tears threatening to spill from the corners of my eyes. Mouth sealed shut, tense, too scared of what will happen if I make a noise, if I move. Hoping if I stay still he’ll leave. My mind is moving faster than I could ever speak, thoughts behind thoughts waiting there turn cause I cant get through them quick enough. I want to wash my mind in freezing water and bleach, I want it to stop. I want coffee but it will put me over the edge, tip me into the darkness. I just want it to stop.


	7. Flower dress

On any other evening I would have smiled at the couples filling the café sidewalk. I would have seen my future reflected in them, my hand being touched gently by a man who adored me and a smile playing on my lips. But not tonight. Tonight I tug at the dress that had looked so flattering in the past. Now I wonder if it's too short. With each tug the front goes lower and so I stop. Trying to look less like a whore. The jacket I’m wearing covers most of it, so I probably am. I want to go home. I want to cry. I want to go back two months and wear the dress so I wouldn’t care, so I wouldn’t be a desperate jealous whore, but I am.

I turn down food but accept a glass of water which I take tiny sips of as we wait on the couch. My hands shake with nerves, the waters ripples turning into a tsunami. I don't want fidget, to chew on my nails or lips, but I find myself gnawing on the side of my lip, pealing of skin. It still hasn't healed from a few days ago. Soon the taste of blood fills my mouth. A few more minutes of copper on my tongue and my hands start to shake a little less.


	8. Concrete

The wall has been crumbling for some time, pits and bumps fall out of all and new graffiti which covers it, anger bubbles beneath me, it always does, always there. Its dark. No one is around. There is the orange glow of a street light a few metres away, a gentle hum. I try to regulate my breathing but the storm raging under my skin wont stop. So I draw my fist back, standing not far from the wall and hit it, making sure to drag my knuckles across the rough surface, the harsh cold of the air makes the pain so much more crisp. So I do it again, and again, and again, again ,again ,again until the rage goes back under the skin, its all still there, but at least its contained. I’d prefer to shed a little blood, feel a little pain, than to hurt anyone I love.

I block it all out after I hear those words, even though I knew it was coming, even though I smile, crack jokes and try and make the last moments pleasant, I know. Clench my fists tightly, nails digging in to my palm but I hardly notice. The only thing I’m aware of is the painful throbbing of my heart against my ribs, even though it feels as though it has been ripped out. Only after feeling warm wetness on the inside edge of my lip is when I notice the blood and soon after, relief.


	9. Monster

I feel the light touch of fingertips through my hair on the back of my neck and in that moment my hold body is rigid my mind is somehow blank and yet filled with the thoughts of the fingers round my neck the tips laying gently on my spine the palm pressing down on the delicate front of my throat, frozen. As quickly as the thought forms it is gone, but the lingering weight on my body can still be felt.

I've never been afraid of 'monsters'. I do however believe they exist, I just don't think they are furry and live under my bed and in my closet. You see, I knew a monster once. In fact, I loved him with all my heart. He played games with me, and I spoiled him with lots of gifts.   
He had dark green eyes, and a grin just like my own. I thanked God for my very own monster, almost every night. My monster didn't have sharp talons, the only thing sharp about him was the knife that made this gash and the words spat out of his mouth like dirt. My monster wasn't green or purple. They were his least favourite colours; so he put black and blue on my arms but hates me even more when they fade back to his hated colours so there replaced. My monster didn't come out and scare me after I had fallen asleep, only just before. No, my monster only scared me when he came to my home. My monster gave me bad dreams too though, so I guess there’s that. But I didn't make my monster leave, like the case with normal childhood monsters. No, my monster made me leave. My monster didn't want me anymore, so he made me go...


	10. Jump

My toes were tightly digging into the concrete beneath me, a haze in my mind, hands wrapped around the rusted steel railing surrounding me which encased me to my waist on the small a square meter balcony, it was at least five stories up, definitely enough for this to work, I look over the edge, alcohol slowing down the rational part of my brain, I start to learn further and further over until I feel arms clutch around me dragging me back into the building, I vaguely hear a gasp but I’m too caught up in why I can still think at all. 

A tightness squeezes around my heart, tendrils reach out creeping round my lungs locking them in place, ribs frozen unmoving, the tightness grows and increases tendrils wrapping further and further, coiling round each rib. Air has stopped entering my mind, brain jumping from place to place, lack of oxygen confusing each thought.

Anticipation, or rather dread settled in my mind, a cloud darkening with every minute fuelled by the constant cycle of thoughts wrapping around me like a thick fog in the air, I felt it clinging to my skin like sweat. Trying to breath in the crisp air the smallest amount, it washes through the cloud just a little easing pressure. Just one more step.


	11. A name

A sickness clasped around my heart at the mention of a simple name, it worked its way through each chamber, a acidic poison clutched round my throat as well, the feeling quickly dropped into my stomach I felt empty memories of butterflies long gone. Poison pumping from my heart throughout the rest of my body a heavy feeling wrapping around each appendage, each breath only slightly alleviating the feeling, hoping for a distraction of the bittersweet memories of a time you wished was back but away from the people who were there. 

Every sense was ripping me apart, every noise or mention felt like the hit of a glass bar ramming into my head a shattering sensation I wished to emulate with fists until they were broken on the people who caused it. Every brief touch, knifes scraping against my skin causing air to catch in my throat and my chest beat a thousand times quicker. It was going to be a shitty day and I was only a few hours in. Fuck it. Liquid rage bubbles and spits beneath my skin burning those who get to close like acid, I feel the burn but am way to used to it to care anymore, simply accept it and let the anger be a short-term fuel for a imaginary mission.


	12. Calmer

I was calm, so very calm. The sickly sweet shots of Sambuca and Sours, numerous deadly fruity cocktails and being around people where I didn’t have to pretend to do anything, laughing sharing stories in somewhat confidence, we talked to strangers like we talked between ourselves, the thought that I could be happier or even calmer hadn’t crossed my mind till someone asked for a light. The beautiful tendrils of smoke danced through the air I could smell it like a shark smells blood and drawn to it in the same way. I asked and I received the oh so sweet release, nothing like what you have felt before yet everything I remembered, a soft coating on my lungs and a slight tickle at the back of my throat. A blessing that we passed back and forth, someone says it looks sexy on me and maybe its sexy cause of how much I can slow the fuck down and relax.


	13. Grow up

I remember being little, well littler I laugh, when I was just a child, knowing I was just a child. Don’t cry he say. For fucks sake grow up he says. Act your fucking age he shouts. Only babies cry he says. Just for attention he screams. If your gonna be a little bitch you can the fuck out of my house he snarls with drink on his breath and in his hand. It always happened and I never understood. Act my age and grow up, I knew I was a child and I knew they contradicted even then. I knew it wasn’t just babies that cried, and I knew that it wasn’t for attention. I just cant help crying when I’m scared cause people are screaming at me for all the things I did wrong. I know I’ve been conditioned to associate crying with pain, fear and the uttermost disappointment. Still doesn’t stop me laughing in disgust at myself if I catch myself even thinking about it.


End file.
